I just used a pipe bomb to save a friend

L4D is an interesting game. The more risks you take, the better the game becomes. How did they do that!?

The Road Ahead

Fortunately, we do not yet live in a post-apocalyptic world where I need to protect my son with a single gun from cannibals...

But things are changing. Today is my last day at WMS in Chicago. Around six-ish I will begin to pack up my office and head home. Tonight Laura is flying in and we will begin the mad dash to pack every remaining thing before the movers arrive Wednesday. At that point we will head to Fort Wayne for the night and then head out fairly soon to NJ and to our new lives.

My life since leaving Full Sail has been...well it has been odd. I always had this idea in my head that I would achieve great things...who doesn't want to think that? However somewhere along the way i lost my focus on what 'great things' meant. Did it mean an amazing career that would have me working at Blizzard? Did it mean becoming semi-popular for producing creative indie games? Did it mean having an amazing married life? Did I even know my arms would be covered in cat bites and that I would spend almost a year waking up to a furry butt-hole in my face every morning?

Laura made a good point to me that we have to redefine what 'great things' means as we move forward together. She is totally right. Right now I want to live with my wife and cat and go to a job that leaves me with a grin of satisfaction when I leave everyday. If I can get that, then I've got "great things" going for me. That and Pizza every so often.

I guess in the end (and I'm kind of losing focus on this post right about now) I just want to know that all my hard walk in all aspects of my life was not for nothing but who doesn't want that?

Some Programming Mumbo-Jumbo

I haven't really talked shop in awhile on this here ol'blogosphere so I figured now would be a good time to get out some thoughts.

A while back I mentioned this idea of a "generator" system that would create objects based on element names from an XML file. This system also allowed for "data inheritance" where elements could derive from one another. This worked in a few ways but the generator system required a lot of "workarounds" that I ultimately found more annoying then helpful. A lot of flexibility got lost trying to make a system that could cover all these basis of object generation. What I found was I lost a lot of special case control - and that is where the workarounds came into effect.

So I've decided to keep the data inheritance system (I found that VERY useful in proto-ing) but strip the object generator and replaced it with normal factories. This may require several factories for various object types (game entities, collision shapes, etc) but will let me do more special case stuff that I can later wrap up if I feel like it.

The (thats what I call) sticky situation is removing the generator system from the current code base. I've decided to do this slowly by replacing "components" of objects first (for example collision shape generation) with factories and slowly work my way up to the highest levels of object generator (the point where all the objects are spawned). I do know that I will need a generic factory object so maybe if I get a chance I can write one and test it out with collision shapes tonight. Packing/moving prep has been taking 1st priority for obvious reasons but I'd like to get some of this rolling since I hope to use some of this code base with friends on the side when I get to my new job.

L4D Update

So L4D just put out their promised update that now provides a streamlined user-created map service they dub as "add-on." One great aspect of this whole thing is a new system them created that allows modders to genereate 'VPK' files that mean insalling maps is as simple as double-clicking the VPK exe you get when you download the map. It will auto place the map and any needed files into the right directories. Apparently if you play on a server you don't have the map for, it will download for you and install. Bad-ass.

I've gone hunting and pulled a good thread with some maps on it
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=905376

So dig in folks! I've already grabbed a few and gonna give em a try. Its great to see people trying new things with the game!

On Bioware and Mythic merger

This just made me giggle:

From a post on Kotaku

"What's next, Nintendo merges with Sega?

Activision merges with EA?

THE EARTH MERGES WITH THE MOON?"

Killing Zombies

Seriously. L4D...bestest game everz.

Game Burst

Been playing some new games:

• Prototype - pretty awesome. Devoid of a solid story to tie it all together (well at least one told in a decent manner) and for once a game where a good/bad choice would actually be cool (liberator vs monster). Amazing displays of destruction that you actually control.
• Ghostbusters - only played the first hour or so. Level design is horrible. You can literally see the level "pathing" via oddly placed cars, etc. There so many obvious parts where you need to wait for triggers. Do I really need Dan Akroyd to open that door? The Ghost-catching part is very fun.

And one more note: L4D still tops my go to "stress reliever." Pop into survival with AI, blast until you can't blasts no more then leave. Good till the last drop.